Hooked: A Hockey Romance

by Abby Donne

  “She’s going to get an interview for me set up at The Seed,” Layla announced, like he hadn’t heard her talking about it thirty seconds ago. “I think she’s starting to feel better. Would you care if I hung out with her Sunday?”

  “You don’t have to ask my permission to do anything.”

  She made a noise and said, “I wasn’t. We’ve just been hanging out on Sundays.”

  “It’s cool. I should probably spend some time at the gym anyway; I haven’t really been going outside of practice.” And because he really couldn’t help himself he asked, “So what’s going on with her?”

  Like always, she replied, “I can’t tell you her personal problems.”

  “She sure as hell isn’t going to tell me,” He muttered, probably a little gruffer than he intended. Tyson couldn’t help but get annoyed, though. “You probably tell her everything that happens between us and that’s personal. Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on? It’s obviously a big deal.”

  “I don’t tell her everything,” Layla scoffed. She put her Macbook down and pulled her legs up, wrapping her arms around them. He couldn’t tell if she was mad or not, which only irritated him more. “You could ask if you took two seconds to get to know her. It’s not like she’s my best friend or Heath is practically dating her.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “No. I’m not going to fight with you over this. It’s fucking stupid.” Tyson stood up and took the two steps to her kitchen to get a drink. He felt suffocated. Overwhelmed. Totally trapped in the tiny ass apartment Layla loved so much. As much as he wanted to get his bag and leave he was smart enough to know that would cause more problems than just hashing it out then and there. Now she was standing, looking like she was gearing up for a fight that would ruin their otherwise perfect day. It was the last thing Tyson wanted, so he decided to go for some honesty. He put his water bottle on the counter and looked at her, forcing his face into something softer than the harsh scowl he’d been sporting. “You’re my girlfriend, and I care about you. If you’re upset over something I want to know what it is and if I can fix it.”

  “This isn’t something you can fix,” She said. Her voice was a lot softer. He let out a breath as she walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his chest. He knew what he heard there: his heart beating a thousand miles per hour. For her. She looked up, resting her chin on his chest. “Last summer Emma found out she was pregnant. She was scared shitless but happy… until she told her boyfriend of two years and he dumped her. She thought she was going to marry him, so it broke her heart, obviously. I, uh, got a call a week or so after the breakup from Emma. She was crying so hard, but she said I needed to take her to the hospital. She had a miscarriage. God, it was horrible. I cleaned the blood from her bathroom so she didn’t have to see it.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Tyson squeezed her tighter against his body and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined this.

  “I guess last week she ran into him at the store with his new girlfriend. His very pregnant new girlfriend. She said he was happy about it, and she’s just been working through it. Honestly I thought she was okay. She seemed kind of reserved for a day, but then we got coffee and she was laughing. She has been kind of ignoring me the past few days, but I just thought she was spending time with Heath.”

  “Heath’s been acting weird. I don’t know what’s up with him.”

  “He doesn’t talk to me about Emma, and she doesn’t talk to me about him, but I know he’s a good guy so I thought she was in good hands.”

  “He is.” Still holding her Tyson started to walk them backwards towards her bed. Cuddling her close, he searched for something else to say but came up with nothing. What the hell could he say to that? His heart ached for Emma, Layla, and Heath. They all were wove into something he knew nothing about. “Do you want to go check on her?”

  “I’m going to go to her apartment tomorrow after class.”

  Tyson felt braver when he wasn’t looking in her eyes. There was something about the raw emotion he saw staring back at him that made him second guess himself when it came to the real stuff. The stuff he didn’t let himself talk about with anyone but Layla.

  There was an ‘I love you’ on the tip of his tongue, but even staring at the back of her head he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Things between them would go from zero to one hundred in a single breath. Tyson had the rest of his season to worry about. He had Heath’s shitty performance on the ice to deal with. He needed to focus on agents and scouts, and he was barely balancing Layla with hockey as is. He loved her. He was in love with her. But it was going to wait. It needed to wait.

  Instead he asked the only thing that seemed remotely close to a declaration of love, and still it felt lame coming from his lips. “Are you okay?”

  She craned her head back and gave him a gentle look. “Yeah.” Layla paused and chewed on her lip for a second before rolling to face him. There staring at him were those two pools of everything he didn’t want to face. He saw words he was too afraid to say out loud staring back at him. Her lashes twitched and she muttered, “Honestly I feel so guilty. I’m happy. Really happy. And Emma is going through a rough patch. I feel like I should be doing more to help her, but she says she’s okay and just needs to have some alone time.”

  “That’s how I feel with Heath. I mean, I’m annoyed he isn’t bringing his A game on the ice. But I’m worried about him. He’s going through some family shit, but he won’t talk to me about it. He is basically never at the house. He goes to practice and class because he’ll get kicked off the team if he doesn’t, but he isn’t performing. He’s an asshole lately, too, and at practice this morning I noticed his chest is bruised as fuck.”

  “What do you think he’s doing?” Layla asked.

  He was worried Heath was involved in something shady. It was Tyson’s biggest fear where he was involved. Last year he did some under the table shit to help his family, but bouncing was hardly illegal. Sure it wasn’t all that ethical, but his hands were tied. Student athletes couldn’t have jobs. It voided out their scholarships.

  “I don’t know, honestly.”

  Silence stretched between them. It was heavy and morose. All Tyson ever wanted to give Layla was sunshine. It was cheesy, but that’s how she made him feel. For as anti-relationship as he thought he was, he was embracing every crazy minute with Layla. Joking felt wrong, and he sure as hell didn’t want to get up from her bed to work on homework. Sometimes, he realized, he couldn’t offer a world made of peaches and cream. Sometimes things were shitty and they just had to get through it.

  She must’ve felt the weight, too, because at some point she wiggled closer and tilted her head until her lips were on his cheek. It was oddly intimate; it was a whisper of a kiss and he felt it all the way in his toes. Again, he was struck with the overwhelming need to tell her he loved her.

  He wasn’t going to say it but that didn’t mean he couldn’t show her.

  Tyson pulled her on top of him. She molded to his body easily, her legs straddling him while she braced her arms above his head. Her fingers combed through his hair. He needed a haircut days ago, but it was hard to get the motivation to go when he remembered how good it felt to have Layla lace her fingers in his too long locks and pull him closer to her. She kissed his cheek again and again and again, trailing along his jaw.

  “Layla,” He groaned. The hands he kept on her hips slid past the skimpy lace of her thong to her bare ass cheeks. He gave them a squeeze and she let out a long sigh against his neck.

  She worked her way up to his lips, and the moment her lips were on his Tyson flipped them. As nice as it was to have Layla spread over him he wanted to show her how he felt the only way he knew how. The only way he was letting himself.

  Pinning her down he kissed her until his lips went numb. When her needy body rocked against him Tyson worked a han
d between their bodies and lazily stroked a path in her tiny little panties. Gasping against his mouth, Layla pushed into him. Her head pressed into the pillow and when he opened his eyes he saw pure need staring back at him. He added another finger and the fires burned brighter.

  He kissed her neck and bit hard enough to leave a mark and worked her harder. Tyson wasn’t the possessive type, but he wanted a mark of ownership on Layla. Even a temporary one. He just wanted something to anchor him to her. A mark that showed the world that she belonged to him.

  He wanted her to have his last name.

  The thought came and went with a flash. Despite every attempt he made to ignore it, the thought of Layla in a wedding dress wouldn’t go away. The harder he fought to ignore it the harder his dick got. He’d never thought about marriage – not seriously at least – and he sure as hell never thought anything so intense about someone he’d only been dating a month. A month. Tyson couldn’t tell her how he felt about her but there he was, rock solid, thinking about her walking towards him under a veil.

  Growling, he pulled his hand out of her and leaned back. Not even her startled, needy moan was slowing him down. Tyson rolled to kick out of his shorts. In just as many seconds he had his shirt stripped from her body and her underwear flying across the room. When he lowered himself between her legs he forced himself to calm down. A quick hard fuck was fantastic, sure, but this was supposed to be about Layla. She deserved more than him losing his cool and ramming into her like a maniac.

  So instead he pushed her legs apart and slid a finger through her wet folds, causing her to wiggle and rise up on her elbows, before kissing her clit. Layla’s legs clamped around him for a second before she relaxed. It was easy to get lost in her; she tasted like heaven, and the noises coming from her mouth were better than porn. By the time her fingers were tugging on his hair so she could grind her sex against his face while she game he was grinding against her bed, just a few ill-timed humps away from coming all over himself.

  “Too much,” She gasped. Her thighs slammed against him and she pulled his hair harder – too hard to be pleasurable – urging him to spend time on other parts of her body. She breathed heavy, her eyes fluttering fast, when he finally listened and started to kiss his way back up her body. After he nibbled on her nipple she rubbed her hands down his shoulders and muttered, “Come up here.”

  He started to get off the bed to get a condom, palming his cock. The feel of Layla’s eyes on him, on his hand slowly jacking, caused his balls to tighten. Quickly, he put on the rubber and covered her body with his. Her legs slid open for him, her slick core eager and glistening. She rubbed her breasts, tweaking her nipples, and gave him a look that went straight to his cock. Goddamn. She was going to kill him.

  Tyson scooped Layla’s head in his arms. Before sliding into her he pressed a kiss to her forehead. Locking her legs around him she lifted to meet his entry, gasping. They were locked so tight it was hard to move. As good as being buried balls deep inside her felt, his cock was pulsating. Desperate for more. He was always desperate for more when it concerned Layla. She seemed desperate for some movement, too, if her little hip gyrations were any indication. She seemed determined to keep him anchored to her body, unwilling to uncross her legs, so despite every part of him screaming to move fast and fuck he rocked into her deeper with short strokes.

  For every forward he gave she rolled back into the bed. Burying his head in the crook of her neck Tyson gave way to the feeling of being so connected to her. Somewhere in the middle of the give and take her legs unlocked and he was able to detach, just a little, and thrust into her the way he craved.

  Pleasure ebbed and flowed. Layla’s sex tightened around him, her nails scraping his shoulders. His name was a breathy moan. A cry of desperation. A declaration. It was the final push for Tyson. With a strike of lightening to the spine, his body shuddered and he bit his lip and spilled his release.

  Despite the ease that fell over him, his heart was still tight and tense. He’d never felt closer to Layla, but he’d also never felt farther away. Once they got through this fall, he would put his cards on the table.

  chapter eighteen

  She knocked again. It was the fourth time in just as many minutes. Emma’s neighbors were probably going to call in a complaint to their building manager but maybe that would make her friend realize she probably needed to answer her door, especially when they had an afternoon planned together. Getting ready to call her again, Layla pulled her cell out of her bag. The door opened just as she swiped across the screen to unlock her phone.

  “I have a hangover. Chill out,” Emma muttered, pulling her robe tighter.

  “It’s two in the afternoon. Did you skip class?”

  “I took midterms on Wednesday so I only had my critique class, and I talked to Elias.” She eyed the CVS bag in Layla’s hand and said, “Please tell me you have some Poweraide and maybe a Bible in there.”

  Layla passed the bag over. “No Bible. I brought snacks, and there’s Camelot on the way.”

  “You’re a literal goddess.”

  Seeing Emma sprawled out on the couch, arm thrown over her head while she held a bag of M&M’s and a bottle of Poweraide to her chest like a prized possession was concerning. Even when they first became friends and were desperate for a “college experience” Emma wasn’t a huge drinker. For her to have a hangover this late in the day was strange, period, but it really wasn’t her style.

  When she told Tyson she felt guilty for being happy when Emma was going through a rough patch she wasn’t telling him the truth. The whole truth, at least. It went beyond guilt. She was scared shitless Emma was icing her out. Their friendship had always been a really open and honest one. Looking back over the last few weeks it was easy to see Emma pulling away, though, even before Tyson came into the picture. If Layla didn’t feel like a piece of shit friend before she sure as hell did when she realized her head was so far up her own ass, too tied up in her job and finishing school, to realize Emma wasn’t one hundred percent herself.

  Layla wanted their afternoon together to be a fun one, but she couldn’t just ignore the elephant in the room.

  “Is everything okay?” It was a loaded question, and there were probably a dozen ways to say it with more tact but it came out with a rush of a breath.

  Slowly but surely Emma moved her arm. For a second it looked like she was crying, but when the robe was completely moved out of the way Layla realized she was laughing. Laughing was probably a bit of a stretch, especially when a shimmer of a tear started in the corner of her eye, but she smiling.

  “Everything is fine,” She finally said. She tipped her head back again and squeezed her eyes closed.

  Layla made the move to sit next to her on the couch. “That was stupid. I know everything isn’t fine. I just wish you would talk to me.”

  “There isn’t anything to talk about,” Emma stressed. This time when she opened her eyes there weren’t any fragmented tears. She was as clear eyed as she could be for being hungover. “So what do you want to watch? I started watching this new show –”

  “Stop.” There was no way she could mask the bitterness in her voice. She couldn’t force Emma to talk but they couldn’t just pretend like things were okay with her. This so wasn’t about Layla and she didn’t want to come off like she was trying to make it that way but she couldn’t laugh and eat junk food unless she spoke the worries that kept her up. “I don’t know why you don’t want to talk to me. If I did something wrong, I wish you’d tell me. I’ve been trying hard to be there for you the best I can, but I get it, maybe I’m not what you need. I’ll always be here for you, Em, even if you don’t want me to be. I just need to know that you’re talking to someone.”

  A bit cringe worthy but whatever, she’d take it. It only came off sounding a little douchey and self-centered.

  After what felt like a billion years Emma peeked her eyes open. Her lips lifted, though it wasn’t really a smile. It was better than the blank look m
asking her face moments before. “I’m doing better. I swear. This is just… something I don’t want you to be a part of.”

  Ouch. Despite her best efforts, Layla felt her eyes started to water. “Why?”

  She started to say something before her mouth closed like a guppy. Eventually she said, “I don’t know.”

  “Is it… me?”

  Emma made a little noise. It was either one of humor or despair; they kind of sounded the same, honestly. “That sounds like a lame breakup line.”

  “Well are we breaking up?”

  If there was any trace of humor in Emma’s attitude it disappeared with Layla’s teary question. The tears were contagious, and Emma sniffled out a, “No. Of course not.”

  Like they were playing twenty questions Layla peppered one more question in there. “Will you talk to me eventually?”

  “I’m not… purposely not talking to you. I just don’t know how to talk about it with you. You ask questions. You do this – ” She waved her hands around, motioning between them. “And right not I don’t want to process. I don’t want to cry it out with my best friend. It sounds so emo, but I just want to exist for a little bit.”

  “That does sound emo,” Layla said as she dabbed her tears. A bubble of laughter tickled her lips.

  Mimicking the noise Emma nodded her head and said, “I thought so. It reminded me of a Myspace post.” She played with the edge of her robe. Her eyes were focused on the unopened bag of M&Ms. “I’m trying. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I am. And this helps… being here with you.”

  “I know I’ve been occupied with Tyson.”

  “Don’t take the blame. Me being crazy is totally not your fault. You’re getting good dick –”

  “Oh my God!”

  “You’re happy, and I get to live vicariously through you.”

  “You’re telling me you and Heath aren’t…”

  “Going to bone town?” Emma shook her head. She looked more like herself than Layla had seen her in weeks, really. She tore open the corner of her candy and popped a handful of colorful treats in her mouth. “I tried, but he said he didn’t want to take advantage of me.”